Doom: Journey's End
by ThunderStrike
Summary: Flynn "Doom" Taggart faces the Icon of Sin. Chronicles of Doom/Doom2. Violence, cussing, guns + demons. UUURAH!!


Flynn "Doom" Taggart stood breathless. Through all his time in Hell, all the horrors and vile acts of hideous desecration this really took the biscuit. Before him was the Icon of Sin. The Icon of Sin was the focus of all the other demons, absorbing human evil and manifesting it as foul creatures with the sole objective of slaughter. The Icon of Sin was a animated rotting goat's skull the size of a large house fixed to the rear wall of a cavern the size of a football field that was full of demons of all types, from Imps and Cacodemons to Arch-Viles and Cyberdemons, and a full host of Spectres, Barons and Knights of Hell and Spider Masterminds and their spawn Arachnotrons and countless others in-between. Doom ducked back behind the pillar. This was it. This was the culmination of his quest that had taken him from Deimos Base to the depths of Hell and back again, only to find Hell had followed him to Earth. This was just too fucking much for one man to take; yet he had taken it. He had spent the last year in non- stop combat killing and killing and killing with seemingly no end. Countless thousands of Hellspawn had fallen to his weaponry, and when that had failed him, his bare hands and trusty chainsaw, and now it boiled down to this. Him against the most demons he had ever seen in the same place at the same time, and the Icon of Sin. He had no idea how he was gonna waste that motherfucker. He grinned. But it sure as hell was gonna be fun trying.  
  
It had started in what seemed another lifetime, back when he got into a little incident with a nurse that had turned out to be the General's daughter, Mary Holmes. He hadn't seen her again because he had been stuck on the next available transport to Deimos Moon Base, one of the two moons of Mars. There were research bases on both Phobos and Deimos, experimenting with some new technology. He had been put on guard duty, a pretty shitty assignment for a Special Forces Marine, General Holmes musta been really pissed. After countless hours of standing outside doors, he had pieced together that the experiments were to do with teleportation. The techs were able to send objects instantaneously from the base on Deimos to the base on Phobos and back again. It seemed they were ready to enter the next phase of testing, a larger gateway that could theoretically allow humans to travel through. He had been on duty in the armoury when everything had gone balls up; a power failure had plunged the base into darkness. Grabbing a gun and a flashlight he went and had a look around, only to find the place was a slaughterhouse, corpses in abundance. He had found one technician still alive but in a bad way, but before he died he told Flynn that some thing had come through the gateway, something neither from Phobos or Deimos gateways. Something bad-ass.  
  
Doom had tried to contact the Phobos Base, and when there was no reply he checked the main viewer only to find that Phobos was totally gone. Vanished without a trace. But the gateway was apparently still in operation, but that was in the labs, a separate complex from the base and dorms, several miles away. Doom had made his way there, only to find that all the base personnel had turn into some kind of friggin' zombies, out for his blood. And they had friends, too. Those brown bastards with big claws and a tendency to hurl fireballs, the Imps. Then there were the Demons, big pink SOB's with a huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth. A whole host of other creatures had crossed his path, but Doom had increased the size of his arsenal and was making good progress. He finally made it to the lab complex, and found the demons had taken it over, and keeping an eye on things were two huge beasts, with the head and legs of a bull and a human- esque body. The Barons of Hell. It had been a helluva fight, he had nearly been toasted by the Barons hurling some kind of green energy at him, and by them trying to crush him, but he had picked up his good ol' rocket launcher by then, and they finally went down. He found the teleporter, and stepped through into the lost Phobos base. The base had been twisted by the demon influence, grisly corpses displayed, weird symbols on the wall, unnerving stuff, but he kept his cool and fought his way through and ever increasing horde of monsters. He reached the command center trying to find out where Phobos was, and it was there that a good part of his humanity shut itself down as he confronted his first Cyberdemon. It was a 10-foot tall horned demon, its body a mixture of demon and machine, and its left hand was a massive rocket launcher from the elbow onward. Something had snapped inside his mind, and instead of breaking down and running he had stayed and faced it down. It had whipped him to within an inch of his life when he finally brought it down with a lucky shotgun blast that set off a rocket while it was still in the launcher, and the explosion had killed the Cyberdemon.  
  
Making his way to the main viewer (via the medibay) he found much to his surprise that the computer did not know its current location. Activating the main viewer, Flynn finally discovered that that Phobos was just above Hell. He could tell this from the images he saw, and plus, it made a helluva lot of sense about where the demons came from. They musta found a way into the teleport stream from here and come through, and moved Phobos to Hell somehow. Doom was really pissed off, and decided that someone's ass was gonna pay dear for this. Exploring, he found another teleporter, this one with a pentagram on the pad. This one took him down to the surface of Hell itself and the killing continued. He thought he would die of hunger and thirst, but it seemed that such bodily functions were suspended in this dimension. After a bloody battle through Hell, he had confronted and defeated the demon responsible for the atrocities on the moon bases, the Spider Mastermind, a massive brain on huge mechanical spider's legs and an underslung chaingun. As it died, another teleporter opened. Hell wanted rid of Doom and it was going to play fair in order to do so. The teleporter was to Earth.  
  
But as he stepped through, he realised the terrible truth, Hellspawn had gone through the gateway long before he had, and Hell's invasion of Earth was underway. The remaining population had devised a plan to board huge spaceships and to go into orbit to escape, but the demons stopped the shuttles from launching with an energy field. Doom fought his way to the spaceport, killed the demons and deactivated the shield, and then watched as the shuttles took off, leaving him behind, the last human on the entire planet. Command radioed down from orbit and told him that the demons have erected a mighty citadel of evil that is the center of all their power. If he destroyed the power source it would stop the invasion. Doom took up arms once more, blazed a trail of death to the fortress and killed every demon inside, and found the power source was a gateway to hell. Doom had cursed long and loud, not even wanting to contemplate going back to Hell again, but the only way to shut of the dark power was from the other side. He went through and battled on, killing and fighting in a seemingly never ending cycle, his soul growing wearier with every demon he wasted, and then he had reached this place. The power source. The final battle, the Icon of Sin.  
  
Time to rock n' roll. He pulled from his backpack his two automatic weapons, his chaingun and plasma rifle. Both were fully loaded, he had been saving ammo for this special occasion. He leaned out from behind the pillar and took a good look at the proceedings. The demons were in the middle of some kind of ritual, all facing the Icon as a platform rose up in front of it with a sacrificial human on it. Doom noted that the control for the platform was behind him in an alcove halfway up the back wall with a large staircase leading to it. He was to the left of the staircase and a little way in front, but still a good distance away from the demon congregation. As the platform was level with the Icon's eyes, they shot some kind of black lightning that disintegrated the unfortunate individual, and then the platform lowered again. Doom checked his weapons for the final time, hefted one in each hand. A long time ago he'd have struggled to carry one and move at the same time, but his body's muscle mass had doubled as a result of the good workout he'd been getting. Now or never Flynn, he thought, do or die, kill or be killed, use whatever cliché ya damn well please, 'cos it's party time.  
  
He jumped up from behind the pillar.  
  
"EAT SHIT AND DIE FUCKERS!!"  
  
The plasma rifle spewed forth its blue balls of energy instantly; the chaingun taking a little longer to warm up but now it was sending a hail of lead into the crowd. The firepower cut an impressive swathe of crimson gore through the hordes, with a fatality rate of many per second. Doom sprayed the demons liberally; not paying particular attention to whom got hit so much as how many got hit. He edged towards the steps, some return fire coming his way from the demons capable of firing energy attacks, who though large in number had each other and a pile of corpses to shoot over, past or through. The demon's full attention of the crowd was on him now that the last few nearer the front had noticed the gunfire. The Icon of Sin itself opened its gross maw and roared, more of a screeching howl, but it was so evil it made Doom shudder more than the kickback from his dual weapons.  
  
And then it was weapon and the plasma rifle ran dry. He dropped it, and holding the chaingun firmly pulled the lever on the side that doubled the spin of the barrel and the rate of fire. The kickback nearly knocked him down, and even after he found his footing it still rattled his brain in its skull. At least his brain was still in his skull, unlike the bodies of fallen marines he had found on his quest, visceral testaments to the savagery of the legions of Hell. The chaingun ran out of ammo double time, but it bought him enough time to pull the next item of choice from his arsenal. The BFG 9000 was the Big Fucking Gun to end all Big Fucking Guns. Doom said a silent blessing for the lab tech that had come up with this baby. He had saved every drop of charge he could muster, and now it was fragging time. He held the rear handle in one hand, grabbed the firing handle in the other and pulled it back. The nuclear accelerator core of the weapon charged, humming and throbbing, then discharged in a blaze of light. A huge ball of green energy fired out, disintegrating the lesser monsters it stuck and detonating as it hit a Baron of Hell. The resulting plasma explosion took out every demon in a 20-meter radius. Doom checked the charge meter. 3 shots left. He fired again where the demons seemed to be closest packed, and again backing up the stairs at the same time. One shot left. The remaining demons crowded round the base of the stairs. Doom let fly his final BFG blast, and without waiting to see the results dropped the weapon and ran for the platform activation switch.  
  
But the Icon of Sin had other plans. Opening its mouth, it fired out a series of cubes, emblazoned with skulls on each side. The first landed in the alcove ahead of Doom, and in a blast of dark power a Cyberdemon appeared. It looked at Doom and roared; bringing it's prosthetic to bear. Not wasting time and ammo with his guns Doom pulled out his chainsaw and moved in too close for the monster to use its rocket launcher. It swung its clawed hand down trying to swat him but he side-stepped and ran behind it. Planting his foot in a chink in the wall, he pushed off and up and with his free hand grabbed the Cyberdemons shoulder. He pulled himself up and revving the chainsaw jammed it into the base of the beast's neck, aiming down through his spine and into its chest cavity. The demon roared in agony and was then relegated to gargles and death rattles as its windpipe was shredded. Dragging the chainsaw from left to right to as much damage as possible, Doom held on as best he could with the Cyberdemon flailing, throwing itself against the wall of the alcove to try and rid itself of the human passenger. But it began to falter as the damage was done, and Doom let go and wrapped his arm round its neck. The monster emitted one last gurgle/growl/roar.  
  
"Yeah, well fuck you too" Doom muttered. Then with one powerful wrench he tore off its huge head and dropped to the ground as the now only 8-foot monster fell forward and slammed into the ground. Doom reached back and pulled the switch for the platform, which began to raise and lower automatically. But he could see now that the other cubes had spawned in more demons, all of them in the upper hierarchy of demon kind and just as powerful as the Cyberdemon that he had just wasted. Cursing he reached for his rocket launcher, and then paused. Why waste his rockets? He pulled the chainsaw out of the Cyberdemons corpse and used it to cut off its prosthetic rocket launcher, twice the size of his own. He lifted it, damn it was heavy as hell but he was sure to be worth it. Giving it the once over, he went ahead and hit the big red button on the side and pointed it at the nearest demon, a Spider Mastermind. A salvo of three big-ass rockets erupted one after the other, much to Doom's satisfaction. The first rocket stopped the demon dead in its tracks. The second embedded itself it its swollen brain and detonated, sending grey matter everywhere, and the third removed all remaining trace of the creature from existence. Doom threw back his head and laughed.  
  
"Who's next cocksuckers? Who wants a fuckin' piece of me?" He fired again and again, massive explosions ripping demons to ragged lumps of satanic flesh. Within a minute the cavern was clear. Just as well, the launcher was empty too. Just one motherfucker left to deal with now, and just as it had always been on his quest through Hell and back, it was the biggest motherfucker to date. He grabbed his own rocket launcher and ran down the steps. Walking to the platform, dwarfed by the Icon of Sin bellowing its infinite hatred, he remained unfazed. All his fears had died long ago, and all that was left was a killing machine, devoid of all emotion except for anger and hate. Anger at what these satanic bastards had done to Earth, and hatred for everything they are and what they forced him to be in order to stop them. Doom knew there was little chance for a life for him when this was all over, no Hellspawn to obliterate with massed firepower, no demons to rip limb from limb. He was so adjusted to an existence of total slaughter that the thought of a normal life escaped him. What the fuck, he thought, lets just waste this big tosser and be done with it. Then I'll worry about what comes next.  
  
Stepping on the platform as it reached the ground he brought his rocket launcher to bear, but before he could, the Icon's eyes blazed and he was struck by the black lightning he'd seen earlier, and he dropped the rocket launcher. It was like someone had gone and shoved a power line up his ass, the pain was excruciating. Letting out one long scream of pain and rage, he pulled his trusty pump action shotgun from its holster on his leg and blasted one of the Icon of Sin's eyes again and again until it closed. Its shells expended, he turned to the only weapon he had left his pistol. He emptied its clip in to the other eye, slammed in his last remaining clip and emptied that too. The eye flickered, and damaged and oozing, shut. The lightning attack stopped. Flynn Taggart picked up his rocket launcher; glad it had not fallen to the ground below, and lifted it to his shoulder.  
  
"Suck it down you filthy piece of shit" He pulled the trigger and fired a rocket into the Icon's forehead, shedding layers of decomposing flesh and cracking the skull beneath. He fired again and its forehead exploded in a shower of gore and bone shards. Doom released all the pain, all the anger and hatred in one roar that seemed to last forever, mixing in with the Icon of Sin's death bellows as he continued to shoot rockets into its exposed brain cavity. Finally, the entire colossal rotting goat's head exploded in one huge detonation of flesh, bone and brain. The supporting rear wall collapsed and covered the remains, as the platform sunk back to the ground. Doom stepped off, realised he was drenched in viscous black/red ichor. Demon blood. It was over. With the death of the Icon of Sin the demon invasion would be instantly sucked back from whence it came. Doom climbed the rubble and pulled himself into a passageway that had been behind the Icon. At the end was his final ticket home, a teleporter, the last one intact. He had one rocket left. He took it from the launcher and rigged it to blow, set it for three seconds and walked onto the teleporter, vanishing in a flash of light as the explosion destroyed the only remaining trace of gateway technology, and collapsed the entire cavern behind it. The gates of Hell were closed for all time.  
  
Doom found himself standing in a lush green field, a city in the distance not a single hell spawned creature in sight. He had single handedly won the Hell Wars. He laughed, not a manic adrenaline boosted laugh, but a real laugh of joy. He discarded his dripping helmet and body armour. He was done with goddamn killing. Fuck killing. He began walking for the city in the distance. The ships had landed, and a medical camp had been set up tending to survivors who had not made it to the shuttles. As he walked in, a nurse looked up and smiled at him. Her face looked familiar, and her nametag said Mary Holmes. He smiled back. Well I'll be goddamned, he thought, now ain't that something. Maybe I could make a life for myself after all. Just so long as the grandkids bury me with this goddamn rocket launcher in my coffin, cos' I might well need it to do the mopping up one day. He smiled and walked forward to face his future, whatever it might hold. 


End file.
